The Handover: Gulf Leadership & Succession Programme

Senior managers, directors and heads of function who are heading for the executive team, and the HR, talent and nationalisation leaders responsible for preparing them. It works in full for either group alone, and best when an organisation sends one of each.

Because succession plans are usually written about people, not with them. When both sides work together for three days, HR hears what really holds a strong manager back, and the manager sees what the organisation needs from them before a seat opens. The plans agreed on the final afternoon are more likely to happen because both people made them.

No. Compliance gets the numbers right. The Handover deals with what comes after hiring: preparing national talent for senior roles and for succession. The rules in each GCC state are covered so that everyone understands the targets their organisation is measured against.

Start with the roles that would hurt most to lose. Judge readiness on evidence rather than tenure. Give each successor a stretch role, a senior sponsor and honest feedback, and review progress every quarter. The same discipline applies under Saudisation (Nitaqat), Emiratisation, Qatarisation, Omanisation, Bahrainisation and Kuwaitisation. The Handover works through each step on participants’ own roles.

Often they are the ones doing the handing over, and the region’s best leaders are judged on how well they do it. The Handover treats preparing a successor as a mark of senior leadership, and gives expatriate executives the methods to do it well, including passing on knowledge that usually leaves with them.

All six GCC states — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait — and any industry: banking, energy, telecoms, healthcare, aviation, real estate, retail, government-related entities and family groups.

A leadership course teaches leadership in general. The Handover is built around one moment, when a seat changes hands, and around the Gulf’s version of it: fast promotion, mixed teams, national targets and family ownership. Three days gives each side of the handover its own day and leaves the third for the two to meet. If your need is recruiting national talent rather than preparing it to lead, see Recruitment & Retention Strategies (Nationalisation).

Both, on purpose. For the senior manager it is an executive leadership programme in Dubai: the bigger seat, former peers, decisions at the next level and presence before a board. For the HR leader it is succession planning training for the UAE and the wider GCC: critical roles, successor readiness, high-potential development and the leadership pipeline. Talent management, executive development and nationalisation strategy are the same work seen from two seats, which is why the programme puts both in one room.

It is built for senior managers, directors and heads of function, and for executives in their first year in a bigger seat, rather than for first-time supervisors. The first-ninety-days material is pitched at the move into senior management and the executive team. For new team leaders and first-line managers, the management development programmes in the catalogue are the better fit.

The open cohort runs in Dubai on 7–9 December 2026, Monday to Wednesday. The in-house edition travels anywhere in the GCC — Riyadh, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat, Manama and Kuwait City — for one organisation’s leadership team and HR function, on dates agreed on enquiry.

Yes. A private edition can be built for one organisation’s leadership team and HR function, working on its own critical roles and successor lists in confidence. Dates and venue are agreed on enquiry.

Admission is by application, and every application is read by a person. Fees and group terms are sent in the reply, before you commit to anything. The fee covers the programme and a BIZENIUS certificate of completion listing every topic covered. Accommodation at the venue hotel can be arranged on request and is charged separately.